15 Proven ice breakers for staff meetings, seminars conferences or events that will get your staff interacting and participating.

The list of ice breakers below allows workers to:

Quickly become familiar with one another, which will lead to a more productive meeting.

Relax and think more creatively

Be energized, increasing enthusiasm and receptivity to messages conveyed during the meeting as a result of the ice breaker games for staff meetings

It also enables you to communicate and reinforce some key issues around employee engagement, corporate social responsibility, workplace safety, customer service, HIV/aids issues, vision, values and ethics plus many more issues.

Also see these links for more related information on ice breakers for staff meetings:

This might seem like something that is normally reserved for school aged children, but it can be extremely effective in getting people talking, making the walls will come down thereby increasing productivity. They can win prizes for playing games, you could also come up with door prize ideas or handouts to add novelty to the event. Getting started with ice breakers for staff meetings may take a little bit of planning, but it will be worth it once your meeting is a success.

1. Put people into small groups and give them something to discuss. Coming up with a fun way to place people into these groups might help out a little bit, as they will be in a better mood once the meeting starts. Once the groups have been decided on, you can give them a few questions to ask one another about work or family life and this will give them a chance to interact with one another. Remember that once people get talking which ice beakers for staff meetings achieves, they normally get over the nervousness that they would have had beforehand, so getting everyone involved in this process is important.

2. Have everyone in each group tell the rest of the meeting something about someone in their group. For example, if you have broken the meeting into groups of five, each member of the group will introduce the person to his or her right. That way, everyone is interacting with the group as a whole as well, while meeting other members of the work environment. This is an important exercise because many people will simply keep to themselves if they are not placed into a group, which will lead to these people getting less out of the meeting. The aim is use ice breakers for staff meetings to get people speaking with one another.

3. Give each member a name tag. Get them to as quickly as possible organize themselves into a ‘word' - using the initial of each person's first name. People often come up with humorous words which get everyone laughing. You can select the number of letters and number of groups to be made up depending on how many people are attending the meeting. Giving them a short time limit adds to the excitement.

4. Arm wrestling match - get members to have an arm wrestle with the person next to them. Have two groups, one with men and one with women. Place the winners in the first group and form a second group with the remaining members. Later on in the meeting you can have another match to see who the overall winner is. A fun trophy can be awarded to the winner. This can even become a floating trophy and can be used for future meetings.

5. BBC sport games ice breakers for staff meetings - ‘Be the best commentator (BBC) for the sports games'. Have pictures or YouTube clips of sport players from the big 5 sports oops with players in funny positions or doing funny things. Going around in a circle Get each member to make a commentary as you would see on BBC sport games. Once you get members laughing at the funny video clips they automatically relax. You can divide the team members according to a list types of sports eg get them to group themselves according to sports that have their initial or department name. This is effective for further meetings as people talk about it in the canteen and sometimes become competitive which creates good teamwork.

6. Have an impromptu ‘pop idol contestants' or carioci session ice breakers for staff meetings. Get volunteers to sing a song. This can be staged before hand where you enlist certain members of the group to get the ball rolling.

7. Last comic standing, ‘contestants' open the meeting with jokes. The best joke is voted for and a prize is given.

8. Hand a piece of paper out at the door as people come into the venue. Half the papers have a clue and the other half have answers. People with the answers stand in a line and the other half has to ask them questions to find the answers. Once they have the answer they team up with that person and ask three ‘getting to know you questions' (for people who don't know each other) or ‘things I never knew about you questions' (for people who do know each other). Interesting facts are then shared with the group. The initial questions could be divided into workplace safety, customer service, HIV/aids issues, vision values and ethics or other relevant topics about the company or meeting.

9. In a small workplace meeting where people know each other get baby pics of participants and hold a cute baby contests. People are required to match the baby pics with the adult. Ice breakers for staff meetings like this add fun and bring warmth to the meeting.

10. Activity stuck under selected chairs. If you are sitting on that chair you have to do persuasive roll playing with another person who also has a note under his or her chair. This can be used to debate issues as well or discuss topics relevant to the event. This is one of those quick ice breakers for staff meetings that doesn't take too long.

11. Food eating contest, survivor style where unknown edible items are placed on a table. People are divided into two groups. Each group nominates a team leader who is prepared to try out the food. The two team leaders enter the challenge, with the person who finishes all the food on the plate winning a prize. Each group is required to encourage their leader.

12. Start the meeting off with appointing ‘deal or no deal contestants' - make your own board game like the tv show. This could also be done with a wheel of fortune prize puzzle. You can adapt these games/ice breakers for staff meetings in order to convey information relevant to your workplace issues such as how to take initiative.

13. Earn points for prizes by completing activities or answering questions. Can be done in a quiz format.

14. Amazing race contestants, send participants to look for clues that tie in with the message you are promoting. When they come together the individual messages, which are numbered, form together to make a bigger message. With ice breakers for staff meetings like this the message pieces can be in the form of a jigsaw puzzle. The person who puts in the last missing piece can win a prize. You could also have another two random prize winners or more depending on the size of your group.

15. Finally, a good thing to remember with ice breakers for staff meetings is that people normally interact better when there is food involved, so it might be a good idea to have an initial staff meeting as a luncheon or dinner. All ice breakers for staff meetings should include some sort of food simply because food makes people more comfortable and will help them open up. This is similar to a wedding, as at nearly every wedding, some people will end up at a table with people that they do not know. As times goes on and people begin eating, however, things begin to change and people get friendlier. Because of this, food is definitely something to consider at your next ice breaker meeting.